Research firm Strategy Analytics has announced its smartphone market share numbers for Q3 2012. The numbers show that Samsung Galaxy S III overtook the Apple iPhone 4S to become the world's best selling smartphone for Q3.

Samsung shipped 18 million Galaxy S III smartphones during Q3 of 2012. The quantity of units shipped gave Samsung's smart phone 11% of the smartphone market globally. Strategy Analytics attributes the Galaxy S III's large touchscreen and extensive distribution around the world along with generous operator subsidies as the main reasons for the smartphones success.

Apple shipped 16.2 million iPhone 4S smartphones, giving it second place in the global smartphone market. Much of the reason that the iPhone slipped from the top spot was because consumers were holding off to purchase the anticipated iPhone 5 at the end of Q3. Apple shipped 6 million units of the iPhone 5 in Q3 of 2012 with very little time on market.

The total number of smartphones shipped in Q3 of 2012 added up to 167.8 million.

The Samsung Galaxy S III grew its market share significantly between Q2 of 2012 and Q3 growing from 3.5% to 10.7% of the global market. Comparatively, the iPhone 4S slipped from 12.7% of the market in Q2 of 2012 to 9.7%. The brand-new iPhone 5 grabbed 3.6% of the market.

However, the research firm expects the win for Samsung to be very short-lived. Strategy Analytics says that it expects the iPhone 5 to out ship the Galaxy S III in Q4 2012 allowing the iPhone to regain the title as the world's most popular smartphone.

Android "marketshare" is completely irrelevant. Apple ONLY sells the iphone which are not cheap phones. Android is software, and only software. Any phone from the super cheap to the premium offerings like the GS3/note2 can be loaded with it. So a Chinese knockoff of an iphone runs Android and thats counted as marketshare towards Android. If you want an apples to apples comparison, compare the iPhone 4s/5 to the GS3/note(2) and pull numbers strictly from that. In some sort of an analogy, its like saying if you combine all the wins from every football team vs the wins from just the Giants, the other teams are better because they have more combined wins.

In this case History is deemed to repeat itself as Apple was in the same situation but up against Microsoft and the PC OEMS and they lost that battle hard.Might happen again, might not, but time will let us know in the end. :)

Are you sure they lost that battle? They were far behind for a long time, yes, but seeing how Apple has been slowly outgrowing other PC manufacturers in terms of marketshare and sales growth, quarter to quarter and year to year, I wouldn’t exactly call it a loss. And even before their marketshare started rising again they were enjoying pretty healthy margins (as they still do), which makes their business less suspectible to crumble even if they have a bunch of really shitty quarters or a year or two even. They don’t need to sell as many devices to stay in the game.

Samsung seems to be the only company that’s able to keep pace with Apple in terms of profits. And even that is only an assumption, seeing how they refuse to release actual numbers (as does amazon with the Kindle Fire).

If PC history should indeed repeat itself with smartphones and even tablets, Apple has nothing to worry about.

Why? Their stock price is based entirely on revenue. Apple actually has the lowest price multiple of those companies you mentioned, AAPL being the most undervalued and GOOG the most overvalued. The only bubble out there among giant techs is Amazon with their ridiculous PE of 3000.

Belief has nothing to do with anything, it is all based on hard metrics like PEG ratios, revenue, and price multiples. If AAPL was priced like GOOG, a company with lower YoY growth and revenue, then it would be about $900 a share right now.

Nothing ever goes up in a straight line. Right now weak longs that bought at the top are being shaken out. Technical corrections are common; the exact same thing happened when it first hit other psychological levels like $200 and $600.

Basing "value" on opinion like it seems as though you are doesn't have any bearing on reality. A correction will be meaningless until Apple stops making revenue, and that isn't happening anytime soon.

APPL's current price is based on current earnings (basically profit per share). However, unlike the other companies in the top-10 (mostly oil companies and banks), they're not selling a consumable commodity. With a consumable, as long as people keep driving cars or spending/making/borrowing money, your profits are safe. And with a commodity, you do not have to improve the product year to year.

Apple is selling durable goods. A bit towards the soft end (lifespan of a few years vs. 10+ years for a washing machine), but still durable goods. That means in order to maintain that stock valuation, they have to keep designing new products and people have to want those new products as much as they wanted the old ones. Any misstep and their profit (and stock valuation) plummets.

If Apple is smart, they will diversify now. Take that huge cash reserve and start up mini Apple divisions making all sorts of different products. Some will fail, some will succeed. The key is to broaden their revenue and profit base to insulate themselves from a slip-up in their bread and butter products (current iPhone and iPad).

If they pull inward and decide they want to concentrate only on a few products like they did in the Mac days, then they're going to end up a bit player like they did in the Mac days. I was already seeing signs of this - Jobs insisting that he'd only make a 9.7" tablet and a 3.5" phone. If he had stayed alive, 5-10 years from now Apple would've been the little company which made the best 9.7" tablet and a 3.5" phone, but too bad only 5% of the market bought those exact sizes.

The iPhone 5 and iPad Mini are good steps to stave this off. So is designing the A6 SoC in-house instead of buying it from another manufacturer (if your retina displays are made by Samsung, there is nothing stopping your competitors from putting it in their products). But they need to diversify more. Expecting the market to bend its desires to fit your concept of the single best product is not a good strategy for long-term success. The market determines the product it wants, not you.

you need to get your head checked, so delusional! no, sorry it doesn't work that way. you may wish that in your fantasy world of apple. let me guess you probably pride yourself because you're carrying the iphone 5 with the biggest GBs. unfortunately you count all iphone's in use against all other forms of cellphones. Android globally has you beat 5 to 1.

NEWS Flash, apple only appears to be a premium phone by its outer shell, using metal and glass as a thin outer layer doesn't make it a premium headset. Let's dig down into the apple product. Retina display, samsung produced and distributed within China to be constructed. All the Chipset from gpu/ cpu to other components like mics and speakers dirty cheap chinese parts put together by child labor and slaves of the system that work on a dime a day and locked under key, safety nets outside the window incase they commit suicide under the pressure. A good fraction of that Iphone is labelled as Samsung components. so apple hands Samsung directly Billions of dollars to product apple success in the western society. So Samsung paid back a few years of profit it made off apple. Iphone 5 users are bias, and self loathing; it's sick. there must be a cure. snow white got a chance. old times though in monarchy, a new age prince came to save your poisoned minds named android.

The Note 2 is a tad more expensive than the iphone 5 but it makes applesauce in its innovation and power. Stop being dumb with which apps opens the fastest test, its lame as hell. Suing in court was LAME too, "you copied our iphone which has a square base with round corners. Apple won to a crowd of jury no technical or education of patent laws. One of jurors withheld his involvement for investments in apple. the whole case was hilarious, it's like making the same argument that car manufacturers can't product 4 wheels and a steering wheel. then sue for billions for all the loses of sales. Let's admit apple hasn't been innovative in years, well since the first iphone, just cheap upgrade!

google is years ahead with amazing ideas for the future. If Andriod didn't come to the scene, Apple products would still be at a creeping slow pace one phone every 2 years, just a platform for music, phone calls and ios exclusive apps.

Android OS wasn't even distributed for another year and a half after iphone debut, yet the pace of the operating system and hardware has blown the seeds out of that apple to try and keep up with technology, or apple's latest scheme to hold back android with red tape and lawsuits. except Samsung isn't stopping, blow after blow chipping away Apple's share. there's an endless product line to be unveiled by samsung in the next year that are designed to lure apple fans away. Samsung is designing phones people want; rather than be told by the producer what they're going to get in the next installment. that's why you're an isheep! Apple has pushed you face first towards the edge of a cliff, with your back legs hook to them, while you get railed from behind so ever gently. Even Nokia and HTC teamed up with microsoft to take a chunk out of apples share.

GOOGLE, INC purchased Motorola Mobility for the hardware copyrights and patents, so no sir you're incorrect, its both an OS and hardware. Both Apple and Google have partners licensed to construct their products, foxconn and samsung; Google/motorola has HTC, Samsung, LG, then cheaper mid-entry manufacturer. debunk your debate right here, because you can't excluded Google's successful business model to get their devices to the poor folks. Windows won that war two decades ago against Mac, and Steve Jobs was complaining back then too. Apple's IOS is just a glorified Application Draw with zero customization ability with a wallpaper backing and icon replacement. boring. apple's has its ONLY strong point, the "apps" and ecosystem. guess what android has the same crap now too. ecosystem, isn't google gaining ground in their own ecosystem? i believe that painful jump to the new pin connector could be a gamble for apple.

you want to compare that iturd to GS3 or Note 2 in sales, based on your debate iphone is premium, but its not. please explain how? lets not count those cheap mid-entry android phones, but because apple put on a $600 price tag on the iphone 5 then it must be premium. no, just a premium rate for idiots to pay. Iphone 5 doesn't do as much, its old news and tweaked old technology to milk you suckers into another tiring same phone. same formula, a new a6 chip and an awkward 3.6 inch screen that got an inch added to the bottom, and a lighting connector. totally worth $600 because its metal and glass casing. oh is ios 6, oh my god. how can i live with the slide down notification bar that was stolen from android, but wait google didn't sue, sue, or sue. i wonder why, hmm because their not scumbags. panorama mode old technology, Android 4.2 innovates that into 3D world photo now. In one year, we'll see what you'll be using for a device

Certainly. The bulk of Android handset sales are cheap low end devices. Cheap or free phones like the ones you can grab at Boost Mobile or in developing nations are very popular, but they are not in the same class as something like the iPhone 5 or the Galaxy S3.

Usage numbers make this even more clear. The bulk of Google's mobile revenue, over half of smartphone web traffic, and the bulk of app downloads and profit, all come from the iPhone despite it being only a fraction of the market. Low end Android hardware isn't going to see much "smartphone" use.

Android has the majority of the smartphone market, there is no question of that. That number also mainly consists of low end devices, which is something that many people here seem to ignore. I'm ok with it either way, it has no effect on the superior quality of the iPhone 5 hardware and the iOS ecosystem. Its the same reason I don't care that PC games are far behind console games in sales; it doesn't change the fact that PC gaming is better in the ways that I value. Popularity is only valuable in terms of receiving third party support, like how WP should have a better ecosystem (great SDK and a marketplace that protects developer profits) but low user numbers are holding that back. As long as a platform is profitable enough for third parties, then overall popularity doesn't really matter.

I'd be curious to see a comparison limiting things only to the high end. The 4S moved 30 million units in less time than the S3, the old 4S sold less than 2 million fewer units than the S3 in the same time period (surprising), and the iPhone 5 is selling about twice as fast as the 4S.

Please, I like how the Android boneheads like skew the numbers. Let's compare apples to apples (no pun intended). Comparing every junk phone you can install an Android OS on to a SINGLE iPhone is not an apples to apples comparison. You can ONLY get iOS on an iPhone, so there is no point comparing OS sales numbers. Well, unless you just want to mislead people.

If you want a TRUE comparison, compare ANY Android phone model to ANY iPhone, and let's see how those numbers look.

You cant compare Apples to Apples because Apple has only 1 model. Android is so much more than that. That is Androids strength. At this point, with Jelly BEan it is a far better OS and those 2 facts are why is is outselling iPhone 5 to 1. That was 2.5 to 1 last year, 4 to 1 earlier this year and will be 7 to 1 by the end of next year. Android is sprinting while IOS stagnates. Deal with it.

Someone should tell Apple, as they like to report iOS activations, which also include iPad. Also, there is not only one iPhone model. Right now, you can buy 3. iPhone 5, iPhone 4S on discount and iPhone 4 on BOGO or free offers.

You act like this is your life. I find it quite pathetic when people have to align themselves so much with a product or ideal because they have no self worth. In reality, can't you be happy for yourself and those that make a different choice than yours.

"If you look at the last five years, if you look at what major innovations have occurred in computing technology, every single one of them came from AMD. Not a single innovation came from Intel." -- AMD CEO Hector Ruiz in 2007